To put that into perspective, starting point guard Dejounte Murray was not yet a year old when that disastrous season ended, while the man he replaced, Tony Parker, was a precocious teenager just finishing his first year at France's prestigious National Institute of Sport.

But as has been well-chronicled over the years, it came with the silver lining of all silver linings: An unexpected victory in the ensuing Draft lottery, and the right to draft Tim Duncan.

Reports of the Spurs' imminent demise have been plentiful over the years, and invariably wrong.

When '99 mainstays like David Robinson, Avery Johnson and Sean Elliott succumbed to age, they promptly reloaded with Parker and Manu Ginobili. And as that crew began to wear down, they made a shrewd draft-day trade for Kawhi Leonard and squeezed out another title in 2015. When Duncan finally retired after 19 illustrious seasons in 2016? The Spurs won 61 games without him, and were well on their way to victory over the Warriors in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals before Leonard went down with a series-ending sprained ankle.

But now, with only 15 games remaining in the 2017-18 campaign, even more streaks are in jeopardy.

At 37-30, with 14 losses in their past 21 games, the Spurs must finish 13-2 to keep their string of 50-win seasons alive.

But those are about the lone positives. Otherwise, 13 of those games coming against winning teams, including one apiece with Western Conference leaders the Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors.

The Spurs' situation is even more dire given that they have zero margin for error, sitting in 10th place in the West and just one game away from missing the playoffs entirely, something an entire generation of NBA fans has never experienced.

But with one streak snapped and several more on life support, could the long-prophesied end of the Spurs' historic dynasty be here?